Biomedical subjects

Takatoshi Tanisaka

Publications and source records attributed to Takatoshi Tanisaka.

5 recordsLinked to original sources

PubMed2006

Dramatic amplification of a rice transposable element during recent domestication.

Despite the prevalence of transposable elements in the genomes of higher eukaryotes, what is virtually unknown is how they amplify to very high copy numbers without killing their host. Here, we report the discovery of rice strains where a miniature inverted-repeat transposable element (mPing) has amplified from approximately 50 to approximately 1,000 copies in four rice strains. We characterized 280 of the insertions and found that 70% were within 5 kb of coding regions but that insertions into exons and introns were significantly underrepresented. Further analyses of gene expression and transposable-element activity demonstrate that the ability of mPing to attain high copy numbers is because of three factors: (i) the rapid selection against detrimental insertions, (ii) the neutral or minimal effect of the remaining insertions on gene transcription, and (iii) the continued mobility of mPingelements in strains that already have > 1,000 copies. The rapid increase in mPing copy number documented in this study represents a potentially valuable source of population diversity in self-fertilizing plants like rice.

Base Sequence↗

PubMed2005

Molecular analysis and physicochemical properties of electrophoretic variants of wild soybean Glycine soja storage proteins.

Cultivated soybeans (Glycine max) are derived from wild soybeans (Glycine soja) and can be crossed with them to produce fertile offspring. The latter exhibit greater genetic variation than the former, suggesting a possibility that wild soybeans contain storage proteins with properties different from and better than those of cultivated soybeans. To identify a wild soybean suitable for breeding a new soybean cultivar, we analyzed seed proteins from 390 lines of wild soybeans by electrophoresis. We found some lines containing electrophoretic variants of glycinin and beta-conglycinin subunits: one line containing a small alpha' subunit of beta-conglycinin and two and five lines containing small A3 and large A4 polypeptides of glycinin, respectively. Beta-Conglycinin and glycinin containing such variant subunits exhibited solubility and emulsifying ability similar to those of the predominant types of wild and cultivated soybeans. Glycinins containing small A3 and large A4 gave a shoulder derived from the start of denaturation at a temperature 4 degrees C lower than that of glycinin from the predominant types of wild and cultivated soybeans, although their thermal denaturation midpoint temperatures were very similar to each other. Cloning and sequencing of the predominant and variant subunit cDNAs revealed that the small alpha' and the small A3 lacked 24 amino acid residues in the extension region and four amino acid residues in the hypervariable region, respectively, and that the large A4 did not have an insert corresponding to the difference in the electrophoretic mobility but Arg279 and Gln305 were replaced by glutamine and histidine, respectively, in the hypervariable region. These suggest that small differences even in the hypervariable region can affect the thermal stability, as well as the electrophoretic mobilities, of the proteins.

Amino Acid Sequence↗

PubMed2004

Transmissible and nontransmissible mutations induced by irradiating Arabidopsis thaliana pollen with gamma-rays and carbon ions.

An early genetic study showed that most radiation-induced mutations are not transmitted to progeny. In recent molecular studies in plants, mainly M2 plants or their progeny, which contain only transmissible mutations, have been analyzed, but the early results imply that these studies are insufficient as comprehensive descriptions of radiation-induced mutations. To study radiation-induced mutations caused by low-LET gamma-rays and high-LET carbon ions at the molecular level, we used the pollen-irradiation method and the plant Arabidopsis thaliana to study various mutations, including nontransmissible mutations. This analysis revealed that most mutants induced with irradiation with gamma-rays (150-600 Gy) or carbon ions (40-150 Gy) carried extremely large deletions of up to >6 Mbp, the majority of which were not transmitted to progeny. Mutations containing 1- or 4-bp deletions, which were transmitted normally, were also found. Comparison of the deleted regions in the mutants showing various manners of transmission suggests that the nontransmissibility of the large deletions may be due to the deletion of a particular region that contains a gene or genes required for gamete development or viability.

Alleles↗

PubMed2003

Mobilization of a transposon in the rice genome.

Rice (Oryza sativa L.) is an important crop worldwide and, with the availability of the draft sequence, a useful model for analysing the genome structure of grasses. To practice efficient rice breeding through genetic engineering techniques, it is important to identify the economically important genes in this crop. The use of mobile transposons as gene tags in intact plants is a powerful tool for functional analysis because transposon insertions often inactivate genes. Here we identify an active rice transposon named miniature Ping (mPing) through analysis of the mutability of a slender mutation of the glume-the seed structure that encloses and determines the shape of the grain. The mPing transposon is inserted in the slender glume (slg) mutant allele but not in the wild-type allele. Search of the O. sativa variety Nipponbare genome identified 34 sequences with high nucleotide similarity to mPing, indicating that mPing constitutes a family of transposon elements. Excision of mPing from slg plants results in reversion to a wild-type phenotype. The mobility of the transposon mPing in intact rice plants represents a useful alternative tool for the functional analysis of rice genes.

Alleles↗

PubMed2002

Phytochrome mediates the external light signal to repress FT orthologs in photoperiodic flowering of rice.

Phytochromes confer the photoperiodic control of flowering in rice (Oryza sativa), a short-day plant. To better understand the molecular mechanisms of day-length recognition, we examined the interaction between phytochrome signals and circadian clocks in photoperiodic-flowering mutants of rice. Monitoring behaviors of circadian clocks revealed that phase setting of circadian clocks is not affected either under short-day (SD) or under long-day (LD) conditions in a phytochrome-deficient mutant that shows an early-flowering phenotype with no photoperiodic response. Non-24-hr-light/dark-cycle experiments revealed that a rice counterpart gene of Arabidopsis CONSTANS (CO), named PHOTOPERIOD SENSITIVITY 1 (Heading date 1) [SE1 (Hd1)], functions as an output of circadian clocks. In addition, the phytochrome deficiency does not affect the diurnal mRNA expression of SE1 upon floral transition. Downstream floral switch genes were further identified with rice orthologs of Arabidopsis FLOWERING LOCUS T (FT). Our RT-PCR data indicate that phytochrome signals repress mRNA expression of FT orthologs, whereas SE1 can function to promote and suppress mRNA expression of the FT orthologs under SD and LD, respectively. This SE1 transcriptional activity may be posttranscriptionally regulated and may depend on the coincidence with Pfr phytochromes. We propose a model to explain how a short-day plant recognizes the day length in photoperiodic flowering.

Amino Acid Sequence↗